Monday, December 22, 2014

My bedroom is on the third floor of the Bricker, which is actually the attic. Before I bought this house, the previous owners had redone the attic to be the beautiful room which I use as my bedroom, a second bedroom which is full of junk I need to throw out, a central room which is sort of hallway/alcove/office and then a unfinished room which runs the length of the house on the north side. It is this room which I call "the attic" because its undone walls, major slant to the ceilings and unheated attributes brings to mind, to me, an attic.
I've been thinking about cleaning everything out of this attic every week, maybe every couple days, this where I keep xmas deco, old papers, boxes of Patrick's stuff I haven't been up to sorting yet, and empty boxes, old computer and suchlike packaging, maybe a few posters, collages, unused rolls of insulation, and an ironing board. I went in there tonight to fetch wrapping paper to do a xmas thing but I didn't make it in. I turned on the light, opened the door and immediately saw the tell-tale moving shadow of a bat flying in front of the lightbulb. Then, I saw the bat come at me and the open door. Happily, the lovely creature did not veer right but continued flying in the attic. I screamed with surprise and repulsion and closed the door as quickly as I could. I looked around for a thingamajig to put in front of the bottom door jamb, which was actually quite sizeable, maybe 3 inches of wide open space between the door and the floor.
"What was that?" David asked and I didn't hear Ada run up stairs to see. "Bat!" I found a beach towel and used a few pieces of lumber to stanchion the fabric into a barrier. I decided I wouldn't be using my 4 year old xmas wrapping paper.
We didn't have a bat all last Summer. I had hired a guy to get up on a ladder and secure the entire house's cracks and openings all along the roof and brick tops/edges. He finished securing the house in Autumn 2013 and there wasn't a bat until today, unless there was one unseen, which is possible since David had a busy Summer and I wasn't here from July-November. It has been many years since there wasn't any bats around the Summer Bricker.
But there is a Winter Bat today! I like it if it stays in the attic (when I'm not in there). I'd like to go in there and take photos of my buddy.